


After

by staticCathartic



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: A Lot Of Feelings and Raw Emotion, Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, I'm writing this as i go, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Mild Smut, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Brainwashing, Past Torture, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, maybe? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2019-10-31 15:08:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17851913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staticCathartic/pseuds/staticCathartic
Summary: Feng Min escapes the Entity’s realm. Adapting to her equally old and new world seems to be just as hard as being in the Entity's world in some places. When she meets someone again in a different light, will she be able to forgive the one who was just as much of a victim that she was, despite subduing her to pain?





	1. Now

Feng Min woke up screaming. Again.

It’s the fourth time this week. She can’t help but _piercingly_ remember what she constantly went through in the past two years. Her screams are pierced and sore the same way her chest was pierced and sore by meat hooks. She can still feel the pain when she breathes, and she can still smell the blood when she opens her mouth.

 

Three months ago Feng Min, the focused competitor, escaped the nightmare. She did every proper step to save herself from the misery. She fought tooth and nail, she forgot and neglected her fellow survivors, in order to escape alive. She sacrificed companionships and trust to save herself. She looked in every notch in the Entity’s world in order to find her escape. She left behind those who cared about her.

Through all of her negative emotions and phantom pain, the worst she feels is guilt. The guilt eats at her. She left her fellow survivors behind to rot inside the Entity. Save yourself. It’s either them or me, she tries to ration, though no rationalizing can justify to herself what she did. She told no one about what she was doing in between trials. The life she led before the Entity was cruel and terrible, but by no means would she ever wish life in the Entity upon anyone. Leaving was her only choice.

She held her hands to her eyes and she tried to stop the river of tears welling behind her eyelids. Quiet sobs were masked by her unsteady breathing. She needed to get back to sleep so she won’t fall asleep during work. Again. Her boss was probably considering firing her already, at least that’s what she believed. She didn’t believe her work was even hitting par standards.

She was paid enough of a wage to live in her small apartment with enough food to survive. Her aim was to lay low and start a new life. God forbid she was ever recognized, though the failure of a professional gamer turned alcoholic and prostitute disappearing into thin air made her believe she was easily forgettable. Something of her old life was finally useful.

She changed her name to Emma Wei, borrowing from her mother. She tried to think of something so starkly boring and average so that no one would ever bat an eye at her.

She strongly disliked her mother and parents, even now, but the regret of moving to America to be on her own made her homesick because of the unmentionable horror that happened not too long afterwards. She needed some comfort. A reverberation of a life before it all.

Feng Min, now known as Emma Wei, got up from her bed and started roaming around her apartment. She started to get dressed, and wash herself to leave in two hours. As much as she wanted to return to her bed and sleep, she didn’t think she could muster closing her eyes again for the day. The darkness reminds her too much. She needs to keep her mind active and distracted.

 

When she first returned to the normal world, she stayed at a homeless shelter. She had nowhere to return to. No money. No food. No life. She needed to start from scratch. The first nights back were rough, being coupled by night terrors and crying. She had to get a job and start paying rent to live elsewhere, or she would’ve been kicked to the streets because no one wanted to keep hearing her screams.

After finding a simple job at a supermarket, she changed her name. Feng Min had to be erased. Emma was a hardworking girl trying to move up in the world. She was polite and cooperative. She didn’t trust anyone.

The worst part about adopting a new life was not being able to talk about what she experienced in the last two years. Everyone would think she’s crazy, having bad dreams, and irrational. No one would ever logically listen to her stories. A therapist would never help, either. She didn’t want to spend her whole paycheck on someone who thought she was crazy. How could you ever trust anyone who believes you’re crazy, anyways?

 

After eating, she threw on her jacket and left her apartment. The heat wasn’t working again, so she already had a taste of how cold it was outside. She spent most of the trip on the city bus for twenty minutes, but standing outside while shivering hard enough to break her ankles wasn’t worth the trouble.

Getting on the bus, she sat towards the back with her head leaning on the seat’s cold window. She feels like everyone’s staring at her, despite only three other people sharing the bus with her. It was hard to stay awake, and her phone was too simple to play music from earbuds. She sighed, and stared out the window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone! My original chapter notes were deleted when I went in to reformat this chapter. I changed the spacing in between the paragraphs because I didn't like how lopsided it felt to me. With that being said, I'll paraphrase what I originally typed.  
> I don't consider myself a writer, but I really feel that writing this will actually help me start writing a webcomic. I think putting these characters into a completely alien environment as compared to what we've seen them from is really interesting. I had this idea a while ago, but I never actually got around to writing it about two months before I started chapter 1.


	2. Then

Today at work was long. She found her head nodding every now and then, just hoping that her boss wasn’t watching her. The monotonous task of scanning items over and over again didn’t help her case either. She tried to keep looking at the clock because she needed to head out early so she could resolve an issue at the bank. She was called earlier in the week to fix something wrong with her paycheck that somehow wasn’t properly processed. Normally, she wouldn’t have cared and would have put it off for later, but if she waited any longer she wouldn’t be able to eat next week. She didn’t want to attempt to _survive_ again.

She knew going to the bank would be a pain. She always felt that the people working there went out of their way to make her time miserable. She remembered sitting at the DMV the first time she moved to America for three hours just to process a driver’s license with a license plate. The DMV and the bank were no different in her eyes, just doing different things.

“Here goes nothing,” she mumbles to herself as she opens the handled glass doors, “fucking hell.”

 

 

 

Fear and hiding from the government was no menial task. Years of unethical experiments and interrogation, albeit not by his own free will, definitely put him on the radar. That fateful day in 1983 prior to his disappearance would definitely not have been met without suspicion. Seventy three staff members and fifty four patients of Lery’s were all found dead and mutilated at the crime scene. Little investigation was had, and piles of research papers were either burned or stored away, never to be seen again and have rot in the deepest basements of federal buildings. Terrible places of pain and suffering were meant to be forgotten. The CIA wanted to cover up and destroy every inch.

There was only one thing left to destroy.

No ounce of mercy was displayed; the grounds were covered with blood and gore. Electricity rained through the building as corpses were impaled with electrodes and rods. “What could have caused this?” was the investigation’s biggest question. Within all of the reports of the incident, nothing explained how it was humanly possible for such a large amount of destruction caused by one suspect alone, but when the only other viable accomplice had his head ripped open and desecrated with electrodes, more questions are left rather than answers.

Herman Carter had been declared missing in 1983; dead in 1990, and the CIA hoped that was the truth. The CIA took every lead they could to track him and eliminate him as soon as possible. No signs led to where he may have disappeared to. People don’t just disappear into thin air, even if they are government employees. They had no clue what he was actually up to, what was actually going on, in a place incomprehensible to even the most brilliant of scientists. Brushing the Herman Carter Question under the rug seemed like the best option.

Herman Carter escaped the Entity’s realm after thirty six years of being held captive and forced to kill for an otherworldly being, the same being who corrupted him and destroyed him into torturing and killing people so he could be taken away. By no means did he find any enjoyment in the never-ending, exhausting process. The time passed felt like hundreds to thousands of years. He’s seen so many faces, both on what was considered “allies” and “prey.”

The pain his body caused him because the Entity mangled it so horribly was the worst of his experiences. The temporary paralysis and the locking of his limbs, joints, and face kept his heart rate up to an inhuman level. It didn’t help that his heart fueled the electricity in his body. His mouth and eyes constantly being held open, not by his choice, made his mind so numb that he had to fall into service with the Entity. There was no other choice to be had. He was backed into a corner. “Us or them” was the philosophy many of his colleagues went by. Resist and feel pain unimaginable. Very few actually enjoyed their lives there, and he was not one of them.

The small amount of time he had before trials was typically spent moping in his office or attempting to read something from his library. He could see without his glasses now, but all of the words began to crumple on the page. His mind and willpower became numbed and mixed up. He wasn’t thinking logically and analytically anymore. His writing was misordered and made little sense; just crude scribbles on a piece of paper that was barely legible. Who’s the enemy anymore? Why am I still fighting? What year is it? How old am I? _Who_ am I?

Crucial memories slipped. He was no longer the brilliant neuroscientist that gained notoriety despite his race. He was a cog in an evil, demented machine that only positively responded to blood sacrifice, pain, and hope. Emotions fed into it. He was a great meal.

 

Readjusting into his new world proved to be extremely difficult. The country he once knew was so different in contrast to what it is now. Easy access to technology left him polarized; the CIA wasn’t even that advanced in his time. He knew how to use computers, albeit fossils compared to the latest models, and he didn’t even bother trying to figure out how to use cell phones. A landline was sufficient enough for him, as it was something he was familiar with at the very least.

He changed his name to James Porter after a bout of research so he didn’t stand out at all. It rang similarly to his old name which made him comfortable with it. The somewhat lavish lifestyle he lived before he was taken by the Entity was something he missed. He made a decent amount of money, enough to live more than comfortably. He had to leave behind all of his credibility and worth in order to live out the rest of his life peacefully and quietly. Living the way he did now was much like it was when he was a kid, so it wasn’t much a challenge. It just felt like the first 35 years of his life were taken away from him, but maybe for the best. All of his credibility was lost and he can never reclaim it without it being too much of a risk.

On top of everything, he was still unstable. His mind still felt shattered after what felt like an eternity of torture, and what seemed like for the fun of it all. Putting it all behind him seemed impossible. Realistically, most of his natural life would have already went by. He wouldn’t have even imagined living for maybe another 70 years, if the stress didn’t kill his heart before then. Retaining his sanity was sometimes more than a challenge when he can sometimes still hear his electricity when there was barely anything left of it. The Entity was still there—

Luckily, he had no trust fund. He didn’t trust the government or anyone else with his money. He left ten thousand buried near his old apartment in case of an emergency. It astounded him how no one has found it yet. Some federal agents hide their money under the assumption that they can no longer work under the government safely, so they start new lives and hide their identities. He’s heard the stories of people, even of people he vaguely knew, disappearing. Whether they disappeared by the will of the government or by their own wishes he was not sure, but he was not willing to investigate. The only story he was concerned of was his own and watching his own ass.

 

After job searching, Herman found a job as a bank teller. He paid someone to create an artificial high school diploma for his new name, a service he could now see why someone would use. His new life seemed peaceful and consistent enough for him to take it and leave it. Living quietly was his goal for now. Still, however, he couldn’t help but notice that something felt off and that more than a few things were missing, besides blocking out the obvious. Things didn’t sit well with him. Perhaps the unspeakable horror left him broken and uneasy in all the wrong places. How is everyone holding up back at home base? Did they even know that he was missing for 10 months? It could seem like a day for them.

 

The door to the bank opened to draw him out of his train of thought, making his head perk up to see what kind of character was walking in. All sorts of people entered the building, from drug abusers looking to find a loan to the filthy rich putting more money into their trusts. He’s never seen such a diverse homing beacon of what seems to be a part of everyone’s neighborhoods.

This time, it seemed to be a young Asian woman with a buzzcut and light, clumped mascara. She had to be at least half his own height. She wandered into the expansion and looked at which counter to walk up to, locking with Herman’s eyes.

Upon further inspection of her appearance, she looked eerily familiar. There was no way he knew this woman. The only people he ever associated with were in his life for work reasons. He didn’t have any personal friendships beyond chatting about the weather and occasionally complaining about the boss. She was wearing a grocery store uniform.  
Herman was fidgeting in his seat. Her facial features were coming together. They weren’t hard to notice. _There’s no way. This is impossible. Am I hallucinating things? I know I have before this; I mistook the shadows in my kitchenette as a meathook the other day… This woman. I’ve killed her hundreds, if not THOUSANDS, of times. I’ve seen her be carried into the sky after her lifeless body has been sacrificed COUNTLESS times. Have I heard her name before? Why does her name matter right now? How is she here? Is **It** here to reclaim me? Was she looking—_

His distressed thoughts were interrupted by a somber voice.

“Uh,” she paused, “hi. You guys called on Tuesday about a check that didn’t go through or something?” Her voice confirmed her identity. Her same screams and cries of pain were echoing in his head. Perfect match.

Feng Min and Herman Carter were face-to-face. People meant to be enemies. Hunter and prey. Herman cleared his tensed throat.

“T-that seems like an issue. What’s your account name?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went in and reformatted this chapter and chapter 1 so that the spacing is better. I didn't like how lopsided it originally felt. It looked so much better on Google Docs! Some dialogue too, that's nice. This chapter literally took me a month to write because I just didn't know what direction to take it. Figuring out how they escaped too was really important, and at first I didn't have it. I have it now though, so they'll definitely talk about it later.


	3. Since

Feng Min entered the bank with a frown. It was a basic chain bank that a lot of people were members of, though fortunately, there wasn’t much of a line. There were actually a few booths open. She looked around to see which one she should walk over to when she met eyes with a man stationed at one of them.

The dark-skinned man gave her a light smile with his pale, hazel eyes covered with circular glasses, giving her the signal to come over to him.

“Uh,” she said lightly, “hi. You guys called on Tuesday about a check that didn’t go through or something?” She tried not to sound too annoyed. She didn’t want to seem rude.

“T-that seems like an issue,” he stuttered, “what’s your account name?” Looking closer at his face behind the counter, his facial features were complimented by light scarring on the left side of his face, finding its way from the platysma of his chin to his forehead. Was he a veteran? Or was he a burn victim? If he was burned there wouldn’t he be bald, maybe? She was dying to ask but she knew that you’re not supposed to ask those types of things to some stranger. She knew better, but the curiosity of what happened to this guy was making her crazy.

“Ma’am?”

“Oh, I-I’m sorry,” she said, “I got no sleep last night. It’s Emma Wei. Do you need me to spell it?” She wasn’t lying, at least. She did feel absolutely exhausted.

“It’s fine. I’ll check to see if you’re in our system.” His eyes were blanketed by black and blue coverings that made it seem like he hadn’t slept in years. If she hadn’t noticed his baggy eyes she would’ve thought he seemed disinterested or bored. She hoped he didn’t notice all of the staring she was doing. It kept all of her willpower not to keep looking at this man. “Seems like the week before your account was put on hold. The system processed the check from out of state. Judging from your uniform, you work a few blocks away, right?”

“Oh. Yeah, I do.”

“Seems like a mistake on our part. You live in the city, right?” He asked.

“Yeah, I live in Bridgeport,” she replied. _I’m saying ‘yeah’ a lot, am I sounding like a dumbass? God._

“I see. Can I see an ID as well? If you may,” he put his hand out. She couldn’t tell if he was getting impatient or if it was just the sound of his voice. Sound of his voice. _Sound of his voice._ It has an alarmingly familiar tone to it. His whole presence felt familiar, like the type of fight-or-flight response when you feel like there’s something _terribly_ wrong, like something bad was about to happen. It made the hairs on her neck stand up straight and freeze in their places. He was so familiar, but she just couldn’t put her finger on it. He didn’t _seem_ dangerous; abcess the scars, maybe. But a lot of people have scars, it’s not a red flag for anyone dangerous. He seemed older than her, so they probably weren’t childhood friends, and if they were, that doesn’t explain her apprehension. She takes some credit in reading character, but this man seemed like an enigma. Impermeable. Indecipherable. Cunning, maybe. He was like a rock.

She hadn’t noticed that she’d been staring at him this entire time with his hand out towards her.

“That tired, huh?” He snickered. Feng Min snapped out of her trance and refocused her gaze at him.

“I’m so sorry! I don’t know what got into me, I-”

“No hard feelings,” he interrupted, “I get it.” Feng Min rushed her hands into her small purse to pull out her ID with her fake name on it and handed it to him.

“Emma… Wei,” he said, reciting the words off of the small card and repeating them onto his keyboard, “you’re from China? I’ve never been, but I’ve always wanted to go. It’s a remarkably beautiful country,” his soft smile was a distraction from how big his hands were in contrast to the small card placed in them.

“Yeah, I moved here about seven years ago, I think.” _Three months ago, you mean._

“You think? Didn’t realize Chicago was that mundane,” he laughed.

“I guess everything just kinda gets all mixed up and blurs together, you know? Everything’s all the same. Lost track,” _liar. You know where you’ve been-_

“That explains why you’re tired!” He giggled again, "have you ever considered moving?”

“Um, not really. I like where I live and I just kinda wanna be around, you know?” _Where are you going with this?_

“Hm, I see. That’s fair enough,” he paused awkwardly, “well, seems like your account will open up some time this weekend and the money will be transferred then. I apologize for the mixup. Happens to the best of us sometimes.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. Have a nice day, miss,” she waved him off and walked away from the conversation feeling more dissatisfied. Something was definitely off about him. A man who seems like he’s hiding something, maybe. Or maybe she’s making it all up. Thoughts about him were making her paranoid, like a monster she doesn’t even believe exists, but is somehow still there, breathing down her shoulder as she stands in silence. She knew too much about that already. Seems like anything is possible now. Real monsters and demons exist. Hell is real: she walked through it, ran through it, died in it, and cried in it. Every day; two years.

  


“Emma Wei” didn’t ring correctly in his ears. He knows he’s heard her name being screamed at her multiple times before. Her name had two syllables in it, not three. He heard one word sometimes, but shouting “Wei” at her didn’t make any sense when the verbalization sounded much different. She was using a fake name, but what could she be hiding from? Unlike him, she didn’t seem like a federal dissident, but she did seem like a bit of a delinquent. He can infer that her previous name was also Chinese and she looked no older than being in her late twenties.

She gave him a lot of trouble back in the Entity’s realm; he can exclusively remember that. She was annoying, but was also selfish and not very benevolent. She walked away from her fellow survivors without hesitation, so that explains why she’s here now, but it also doesn’t. How did she get here? He knows how he got here. Did she follow him out somehow? But who came out first?

It’s likely that the hole he discovered and reopened was also used by her. How she did that, he didn’t know, but he used the same place he was taken. Is that why she’s also in the city? Léry’s wasn’t too far away from Chicago, and it’s also where he used to live for fifteen years. Had it really been that long? It’s also likely that she may be from a different reality. He took note of the Entity taking people from what seemed like completely different dimensions when he found out one of the survivors’ worlds had a zombie apocalypse currently happening. Thinking about that made him feel crazier. Logically, there was no way in hell that would ever happen, but being in the Entity’s world for so long changed his perspective on a lot of things. A _zombie apocalypse_ was something that seemed almost bound to happen in juxtaposition to the Eldritch horror.

She didn’t, under some miraculous circumstance, recognize him. She possibly did, but she seemed alarmingly calm about it if she had. If he were her, he would’ve recognized him immediately. How could she not? How much did she remember about the time in the Entity? She couldn’t have been there for too long; she seemed like the most modern survivor of the bunch. Seeing her for the first time with her obnoxiously bright clothing and design made him realize _how long_ he had been trapped in there. Thirty six years was more than the time he spent on Earth, but he can’t even compare his time to even a handful of the killers that were presently there with him. He didn’t usually converse with them, many of them were unable to speak, or simply didn’t know much English. He studied French in high school, but it didn’t prove to be of much worth when the only killer who would have only understood French was impossible to communicate with. It was a waste of time. Time he had an infinite amount of.

 

Herman bit the bridge of one of his index fingers, a habit he had picked up again when his hands didn’t taste like charred and burnt flesh anymore. He used to do it when he was feeling severely anxious or distressed before he was taken. At some points, there were visible bite marks on both of those fingers of his. It didn’t take long for them to come back with his new life.

His head was feeling dizzy. He wanted to punch a hole in his computer screen in front of him. He needed to take his break early. He got up from his chair and slowly made his way to the bathroom; his pace feeling like a crawl. Staring into the mirror in front of him, he froze. Seeing his face and the way it was permanently scarred left him feeling sick. Years he can’t get back; the world he’s missed: all gone. He slowly took off his glasses and held the sink with his hands as he looked downward into the drain. _There’s no way this is real. This looks made up to me. A fabrication. A muse._ Herman froze again when he felt water building up in his eyes. He was scared; this was all fake. He wasn’t even here, he was back in his office asleep with his eyes open. A horrible nightmare. Was he in a coma?

No—the Entity would never give him the privilege of a sleep he couldn’t wake up from, or even closing his own eyes. He slid his hair back to better cover the scar tissue on his scalp. Hair didn’t grow there anymore, so he tried his best to keep those parts covered. He tried to see if he could grow out and maintain dreadlocks to better cover his patterned bald spots, and for the most part, it worked enough.

 

Herman sighed and daintily placed the glasses back on his nose. He noted that he’ll have to keep an eye out for anything that's a threat to him. He’s not sure what could happen to him next. All he can hope for is that he won’t see her again: it’s too much trouble and stress, he won’t be able to handle it. The last thing he needs is a reminder and haunting glow of the life he once lived; the life he was _forced_ to live. He snuck his way out of the employee bathroom and glanced at the clock on his wrist: _seven P.M. A half an hour to go._

  


Feng Min grasped her arms as she walked to her bus stop. It was so cold it felt like the exposed parts of her body were developing second degree burns. Breathing into her hands certainly didn’t help. She needed as much body heat circulating as possible.

The chills in the air weren’t the only diagnosis for her own embrace; she was uneasy. Sick. Her mind was racing. She couldn’t stop thinking about that man from the bank. _Where was he from? I know I know him._ The obvious just wasn’t sticking with her, and it stressed her out even more. She felt like she had to know who he was. She needed to find out. It’d kill her otherwise. Something wasn’t right here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, again! Sorry it's been awhile, I've been a bit busy. This chapter's much longer than the last two, so I hope that'll suffice! Also, thanks for all your kudos and comments???!!! It's means a whole hell and a half to me. I wasn't expecting such a boost with only two chapters! I'll be sure to focus on this a bit more in that case.
> 
> Also, the French killer I mentioned is a killer OC of mine who got his head blown off in the Napoleonic Wars. He's a gross trash baby that no one wants to touch. Poor boy.
> 
> Also, hit me up on Tumblr if you have any questions about my fic! My Tumblr is staticCathartic. I don't like to reveal anything upfront and let the story place things on its own, so please ask me anything there! Thanks so much for your reading and support!


	4. Before

“Hey! Feng. Feng, was it? Miss?” A deep, nasally voice tried shaking her awake. Feng Min groaned. She didn’t need to be woken up at this hour, whatever hour it was. She needed her sleep right now. “Ya want me to call ya ‘‘Min’ instead? I ‘member this Korean fox back in Vegas got really mad when I called her by her last name or whatever. I don’ really get it, but…” he trailed off.

“Huh?” She brought her back up to a right angle to see who was preventing her from sleeping. It was Ace Visconti, acting like a bit of a creepy asshole again. She’s sure he means well, but he always comes off as a bit more than arrogant. She remembered all of the times he was bragging about his gambling endeavors like it’s something to be proud of, completely skimming over the part where he goes bankrupt with loan sharks looking for his head.

“Whatever,” she said while pushing his hand away from her shoulder, “what happened?”

“Simon? Remember that geezer? He jus’ came back with his fuckin’ arm ripped off,” he said, like he was telling a dramatic story.

“Mr. Kennedy?” She mused. Simon Kennedy was a fellow survivor who had apparently been trapped in this world since Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, from what he told them all. The last major event he remembered from his past life was the Lusitania being sunk by the Germans before the Great War, or perhaps, no war at all. He was never even there to see its effects on the United States. Simon was an Irish immigrant who moved to America and became a history professor. He had a knack for ancient history and loved talking about these absurd facts and stories about the things he studied. The Roman Empire was his favorite, and a handful of survivors loved their occasional history lesson. It kept them occupied and busy for the time being; something else to think about. “What... What happened to him?”

“I ain’t knowin’ for sure, sweetheart, but he’s screamin’ and crying. His face is pale like he’s seen some ghost and he might pass out for good,” he said. Simon had been missing for what the other survivors speculated as months. He no longer was present in trials; something that you simply couldn’t just miss out on when you were forced to be there. He left outwards towards the surrounding woods of the campfire and hadn’t returned without saying a word. People come and go in this world, so it was no surprise that he had disappeared, but it didn’t explain anything when he was someone who was devoted to the people trying to live as much as he was. People who had given up disappeared; not this man.

Simon was coughing as he was grasping his shoulder that was steadily flowing blood like the Amazon. His wrinkled, sunken eyes that were hidden by his bifocals were squinted and making his mouth wince in pain and he writhed in pain on the ground in the fetal position. His old featherweight waterproof jacket was covered in blood from his old body, with his long Santa Claus beard bunched together and dyed red. Feng Min approached the commotion and gathering while rubbing her eyes.

Bill Overbeck emerged from the campfire gathering and into the mess everyone was watching.

“What the hell happened here?” He yelled. Everyone stood in silence watching him approach Simon. “Kennedy, is that you? Where the fuck have you been?” He asked shock.

“I’ve been… meandering out in the forest, trying to learn more,” his words were stuttered and slurred, “this place has a natural flow and cycle to it. I know it; seen it m’self.” David and Jeff helped him sit up so he could properly view his interrogator.

“Of course it has!” Adam angrily interjected from the opposite side of Bill, “everything does around here! How the hell do you think we got here in the first place? Don’t you think we’ve noticed that there’s a certain way of doing things, like what _not_ to do? Like leaving the campfire, maybe?” Simon turned his head and looked at him in disbelief into a coughing fit. He was the only survivor who had presentally been there the longest, so he’s been the guiding light for these poor souls when Benedict Baker disappeared as well.

“Fuck off, Adam,” Jake snapped, “you’re suddenly the expert now?”

“I’m just following the rules that _he_ told us about. ‘Don’t go too far from the campfire, it isn’t safe,’ or how about, ‘don’t go anywhere alone?’” Feng Min watched her fellow survivors continue to bicker about Simon’s whereabouts and actions. Rarely were so many of the survivors all here at once like this. She couldn’t process anything that was going on. Something about the Entity having a certain way that it worked? What did that mean?

“May I interject, please?” Yelled Simon, “this information is very important.” Everyone went silent in respect to his words, despite his actions. Everyone that was gathered around him respected him for each of their own reasons; he may have seemed like a senile old man, but he was intelligent and observant. He fell weak and started to fall over from yelling, needing David to prop him up again. Adam scoffed and walked away, still listening from afar.

“Thank you,” Simon added, as he cleared his now raspy throat coated in fresh blood, “now, from my time in this world, I’ve seen a lot of _breaks_ in the machinations of this physical being. We can denote and estimate that it may be a physical being, in the very least. We’ve interacted with its more organic form every day.”  
  
“How does that explain what happened to your arm?” Claudette asked, looking concerned.

“I shall get to there, Miss Morel. I appreciate your worries,” he said with care and patience. His eyes were getting heavy, and his face was growing paler. “Now, from-from what I gather, the territory surrounding us seems like a place where the Entity’s mind draws with nothing, like suddenly it’s no longer present. I’ve been wandering in between this purgatory for quite a while and I’ve gone almost virtually unnoticed. There is no doubt in my mind that it tried searching for me—but it couldn’t find me—leading me to believe it has no present surveillance that’s efficient enough watch over every soul in it. It cares more about the mass blood sacrifice and trials that occur rather than one lone man finding its outreaches. That, or the place of existence I was walking through is land that is nullified, if I’m correct.”

Everyone remained silent. They had already knew that the Entity had some physical aspects to its seemingly ethereal nature, but truthfully, they didn’t understand it at all.

“We are called to trials when we are present because it knows we are here. It has a pool to choose us from. We don’t participate constantly; variety is better and less boring. We already know that our killers, _for the most part_ , remain in their own ‘realms.’ I believe these realms work like our campfire. I was not responsible for that knowledge, but Baker was. Part of my mission was to find him and I failed. However, it is my theory that he’s still roaming the middle grounds somewhere and still trying to understand our world much better than I ever could.”

“What’s it to, slaphead?” David asked, clearly annoyed, “y’left us on r’own while y’picked ye arse in the arsehole of the Entity,” David let go of Simon, letting him fall over.

“I’m trying to help you all! This middle ground is like the real world!” He wheezed, “it may be the key to getting back. I think it works like the trials, where you can also get injured. It probably has a connection back to the real world—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Adam stood up, “people have already tried. We lost them.”

“They may have left and escaped—”

“NO ONE escapes here! They’re all dead. Worse than dead; they’re _gone_ ,” Adam stared angrily at Simon. He couldn’t believe he was fighting with this man, but he had no other options left. Simon was the one who saw these people leave. He made the rules after seeing people disappear. The anxiety and the desire to find the truth held him up like a noose.

Claudette held her fingers to Simon’s carotids. Their paces were slowing. Simon paused.

“I may have overestimated the types of planes of existence we live in here,” his eyes were struggling to stay open, “the outer reaches are not grounds where the Entity protects its property, this was a fatal mistake—” Simon collapsed.

“Who hurt you?” Feng Min yelled, with her eyebrows creased in stress and fear.

“He… desperate as I was…” He kept coughing up blood trying to complete his words. His blood was spilling out onto the grass held up by dry dirt forming into dust from his frail and weakening body falling. “Believed I betrayed him—” He finally face planted onto the ground in front of him. Claudette held her fingers to his neck again. His lifeless body seemed uneventful and unimportant when everyone there with him had “died” hundreds to thousands of times. His body lied on the ground like a stage prop.

“He’s dead,” she stated plainly, eyes starting to dampen.

 

Someone permanently dying in the Entity’s realm was unheard of. People only disappeared, not die. How could the Entity allow that? What happened to him?

Feng Min was watching Simon’s burial from afar in front of the campfire. She sat on one of the logs and held her hands together as they shook and twitched. No one has seen anything like this before. Everyone questioned what they knew about the world surrounding them: everything was wrong. Out of place. She felt like crying, but she forgot how to. She never expected to lose someone for real. She started feeling cold towards her comrades’ deaths in trials when she quickly realized they weren’t really _gone_. Trials became a game that she needed to win.

She tried looking towards the elderly man’s body, but it was too much to grasp for her in one piece. She needed to figure out how this happened; _why_ this happened. Did this mean it was possible to escape? She needed to leave the campfire in short bursts to see what he really meant. This news is a whole new perspective on survival. Forget everyone else. She rose from her seat on the log and started making her path towards the holes in the trees.

  


 

She woke up and checked the clock besides her bed. It was a quarter of four in the morning. She remembered that her alarm wasn’t set because she was off of work today. Falling back into her pillow felt like falling off of a cliff. Everything felt too far away for her to grasp. She didn’t feel free when her dreams were haunted by the Entity. It had its constant grasp on her body and mind as much as it did before. Her arms started quivering again, making her feel anxious. She always felt anxious now, but it was a different type on anxiety. What if her dreams were telling her something again? What if she was becoming paranoid again? What if she needed to—”

She tried to shake her own thoughts from the hold on her head. She needed to sleep more today. Losing sleep did no good for her mental health. The words she felt snaked through her mind. She needed to shut them out.

From the pharmacy the other night after having continuous sleep deprivation issues, she bought melatonin to see if her loud mind can be satiated. She’s been too afraid to actually take the pills, even though they’re too harmless to make her addicted to anything again. It’s just a harmless hormone pill, right?

She grabs a glass cup from the cupboard in her kitchen and fills it with water. Opening the pill bottle on the counter, she takes one small pill and puts it in her mouth. Skeptical, she leaves the kitchen and groggily roams back to her bedroom. Sniffling, she reaches for her bed sheets and pulls them over her head after she lets herself fall in.

  
  


Her legs were aching. The muscles in her body were starting to get sore as her breaths were labored and wheezing. She was tensing up. She couldn’t fail. Not again. She needs to prove herself here, somehow. 

The Doctor had been on her tail for about an hour. He was impossible to lose when she kept screaming her head off. Vaulting and ducking and hiding were just tiring her out. She was going to vomit from running so long. Passing out from exhaustion never felt so real before now.

She peered her head back behind her shoulders and couldn’t see him in the area. No sighs of relief were breathed; she wasn’t free yet. She was the last one left alive. Jake, Jeff, and Tapp all died much earlier on. The Doctor was killing them himself. This trial has only been about a day long from what she thinks, compared to the typical upwards of a  businessweek-worth length that the Doctor usually pushed in a regular trial. He was the worst.

Two generators were completed, thankfully, but she couldn’t get lost. Searching for the hatch in the cornfield that stretched for miles was no easy feat. She recomposed herself then took the gauze roll from her back pocket to cover up the wound on her abdomen. She heard him again. He was nearby. His labored breathing began stinging her ears. She was still holding and sucking in her breath from her injuries.

The Doctor stopped cold in his tracks to turn around to see Feng Min. Game over. Her breaths were too loud, and he took notice immediately. He approached her limped body and stood over her, making her cower under the skyscraper that he felt like. All he did was stare at her, making her heart race like it was going to burst out of her chest. _What are you doing? End it already. PLEASE._ His bloodied weapon was cradled in his hands as he stood in silence. She never got a good look at his face before now; his entire left side of the skin on his face had tangled strings of skin, looking red and irritated; his eyes were illuminated with electric light, making a spotlight on her paled and sick face. He seemed bruised tired. He had no discernable facial expression from his eyes and mouth being forced open, but his eyes looked...conflicted? The only things the two heard were their own breathing and the painful morning wind of the cornfield. He could end it all right now if he wanted to. There was nothing stopping him. From the corner of her eye, she saw his legs start to move and his body start to turn, forcing his body to move away with them. Within seconds, he was gone.

She couldn’t believe what she saw. She’s never seen another killer show mercy before. Was that mercy? Pity? Boredom? He walked away from a vulnerable and easy target who gave up. He _let_ her escape. He had every choice to slaughter her there with his own hands, frying her brain instantly. Why didn’t he? She decided not to follow him. He could be tricking her, which didn’t seem unreasonable. He was one of the killers who fucked with the survivors the most, to assume he would abuse and torture her was definitely not a poor foresight. She stood up from her position on the ground and kept walking. If she didn’t need to be afraid anymore, she just needed to find the hatch and leave. She searched for the familiar hum of the dark and foggy portal.

  


Her eyes opened too quickly again. Her dreams were getting too disturbing. Was the whole thing a dream in the first place? How did it feel real? Why didn’t it leave her already?

Feng Min looked at her hands again and got lost in thought. She needed to see the man from the bank again today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ace mains rise up
> 
> I tried writing more this time around because I felt like the length of chapter 1 and 2 were a pisstake compared to this one. It's still not too long, but I think it's a reasonable length. I'll also try to refrain from using so many original characters because I know it can be annoying for some readers. I swear this old geezer is the only one. He doesn't guide the plot, but we'll see him again later. Ya'll so fantastic and supportive; I'm glad I have an audience that I can look forward to entertain and satisfy. I've been really unsure about this chapter, but I think it'll be okay.


	5. When

Herman yawned as he was scribbling notes on the yellow notepad in front of him. _Fei… Fan? Fang?_ On his computer screen layed a collection of common Chinese surnames and first names in Mandarin. He knew very little of the language alone, so he had no idea how to pronounce the words in front of him. She may not have even been from a Mandarin-speaking region. He was going off of sheer memory; memory that was clouded and fragmented. This was bothering him too much, as he was becoming obsessive over the situation. It was the late afternoon and he still felt too tired. He was unable to get any sleep in the previous night and it just made him groggy and feeling slow the next day. He couldn’t help but think of the day before. It made him feel terrible. The pace of his heart felt like he was running, but the only thing that he was running from was himself. Skipping work today felt like a good option, but it felt unreasonable to him at the same time. Running away from something that only happened _once_ wasn’t fair. He’ll never see her again.

The bank’s front door opened again as it did on a routine. Herman snuck a look and felt sick to his stomach. Spoke too soon. His stomach lurched. Maybe it was just someone who happened to look _exactly_ like her. That wasn’t too far-fetched, right? He’s just panicking again—

The girl in question was walking in slowly and was scanning the grounds with her head. She wasn’t looking for him, was she? Why else would she be here? Is there another issue?  Cashing a check, maybe? Why would she do that in the building; there were machines outside to do that. Herman wanted to get up immediately and hide in the employee’s lounge. He couldn’t handle this, not now, not ever. He can’t see her face again.

The girl kept looking around until she found the man of interest and began locking eyes with him again. It looked like she was being hypnotized. She immediately caved a direct path to meet eyes with him again right in front of him.

“Excuse me,” she stuttered, “I know this may sound kinda weird but,” Herman sat still in front of her with his eyes wide. _She knows. She found out. No, she_ already _knew_ . _She’s going to call the police and I’m fucking screwed._

“Is there something wrong with your account again? I can see what I can do to fix it—”

“No, no, no, it’s not that,” she interrupted, “there’s just something seriously bothering me,” she spilled out. He couldn’t see her legs, but she was definitely quivering in fear and stress.

“I beg your pardon?” _Say it, already. I’d rather turn myself in for bullshit I never willingly did than sit here waiting for you in agony just doing the same thing._ The long pause in silence after his words felt like one of the decades he’s lost. She seemed scared to say what she was going to say, but he couldn’t put why. She finally had the upper-hand in this dynamic.

“Do I… know you from somewhere?” She blurted out. She had a hard time finishing her sentence and continuing her thoughts, “it just feels like I’ve met you somewhere before and I don’t know why. I’m sorry.” The Doctor looked at her with sheer fear and shock. The words stuck to him like barbed wire. He was arguing with himself in his own mind. _Well, yes, of course. I’ve killed you about a couple thousand times, maybe. I don’t know how you could forget a face like mine. It’s ruined. I’ll never look the same again. My skin is fucking disgusting and lost its color. Sometimes I’m still forced awake in the early hours of the morning from how painful it can suddenly get. Most of it has healed, yes, for sure, but what difference does that make? It took months alone to look the way I do now. How could you not forget me? I’ll never forget every single one of those helpless fucking survivors’ sick faces screaming in pain and agony as I electrocuted their grey and white matter to liquid. I remember feeling terrible about it at first, but then enjoying it because_ I had to. _Did I really have to? I can’t stand looking at your fucking face. I can see you crying and screaming again. I want to step over my counter and grab your neck and wring it out—_

Did he seriously want to do that? Who was speaking here? Who had control over his body again? Did he have control? Whose thoughts are these? They’re certainly not his, are they? Did he just say he say everything out loud? Why wasn’t she responding?

He held his hands over his forehead and face, covering his eyes in shame; his hands creeping up towards his scalp. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. None of this was real. None of this was _ever_ real. There’s no tangible way to see how this is real. He finally found some strength to move his eyes towards her glance, though weakly. He was already trying not to draw as much attention to the two of them as it was. Was everyone staring? He could feel their eyes digging holes into his skull, as if he didn’t have enough there already.

“You know, don’t you?” She asked quietly. She looked as scared as he was, if not more concerned. He saw her vulnerable face looking into his eyes with concern… for him? Why would she care about him? Is this some sick joke?

“I’m sorry,” he paused. He didn’t want to lie to her. He wanted to scream to her face about how they “knew” each other. He wanted to see her cry and run away in fear from finding out the truth so he didn’t have to see her again. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” _pathetic._ He needed to leave. He needed to hide. He didn’t want to see all of his coworkers and every patron in the building witness him having a panic attack.

He watched the young woman watch him slowly stand up like a sore elderly man. He wanted to cover his face from her view, but instead decided to turn away to avert their gazes to being walking. He felt shameful. Disgusting. He couldn’t tell her the truth because he was too scared to. She would be scared. Did he want to protect her? Maybe… not, but she had a right to know. Maybe? She wasn’t important to him or anything. If he ignores her maybe she’ll finally go away.

He found the knob to the employee’s lounge and turned it, feeling like someone was twisting his own wrists. He can’t stand to be here anymore for today. He’ll take his leave for the afternoon.

  


 

Feng Min stared at the mysterious man as he paced away from her view. She was confused, and most of all, hurt. She didn’t know what he meant. He _obviously_ knew her. How could he have reacted that way otherwise? Did he do something to her? She remembered that guys snuck things into her drinks before but she didn’t care enough about the consequences. Did he do something then? Was he feeling the guilt?

She lived in New York City before she was taken; so how was that possible? She was lying to him, yes, she’s never lived in Chicago. Was he the same deal? Was he a crazed fan that somehow followed her back to Chicago after he date raped her? He didn’t seem like someone who particularly cared about video games, but that’s never stopped some guys. They had no idea who the girl was that they were watching on Twitch. They saw a pretty face with a nice body. They tracked her down after her career ended and stalked her. They found her home. They made her feel unsafe. She was thankful that she ended up in Chicago. They weren’t supposed to find her again. Part of her was glad that she was abducted by an otherworldly being; it made Feng Min gone for a while, now. Emma took her place.

How did he know? How did he know that she ended up here after she disappeared? There was no way that he was with her in the Entity’s world, was there? All she knows is that his face seems _familiar_. That can mean virtually anything. Her fists clenched.

Her train of thought was abruptly stopped when she heard a light and friendly voice coming from somewhere in front of her. She looked up to see the source of the speaker.

“Hey, is everything alright here? I saw James walk back a few minutes ago looking really shaken up.” An average sized man with dirty blonde hair and a still-steaming cup of coffee sat at the counter next to the spot who apparently belonged to _James_. “Weren’t you here yesterday?”

“Oh, um, yes. Yes, I was,” she meagerly spoke, “I was just about to leave.”

“Oh sweetheart don’t feel bad,” he sighed, “he’s a little bit of a weird guy but he’s really nice to everyone.”

“Huh?” She asked. That was sudden and irrelevant.

“What? I thought you guys were interested in each other or something,” he laughed, “the way you guys were talking yesterday made me think like you two were kids admitting crushes or something. What do I know? I don’t know him that well; he’s super shy and never really talks to any of us—” he paused, putting his hand to his mouth, “I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I just had a personal question for him.”

“Oo, a ‘personal question,’ so you _do_ have it for him?”

“What? No, oh, god no!” She said impatiently. _Who the hell does this guy think he is? Does he know how much of an asshole he is?_

“Aw, alright. I just want to get this guy a girlfriend. _I think he’s really lonely_ ,” he whispered, with one hand pressed to his face like a child. Though overall, he seemed very disappointed.

“Right. Good luck with that,” Feng Min turned away and shivered. She turned back to see him waving at her. _Creep._

Walking outside, she took a massive breath in to prevent herself from getting a splitting headache. None of this made any sense to her. She never got any of her questions answered, except maybe that his name was _James_ . Why did he react the way he did? He definitely knows about something _very_ horrible between the two of them. Did she do something to him, maybe? Or was it like she thought, _he_ did something to her. She crossed her arms in front of her and huffed. She still needed to get to the bottom of this. _James,_ she thought, _I’m going to know who you are. I’ve got nothing else to lose. I’m gonna figure you out._ She walked to the bus stop she originally arrived at to trek towards the bank and settled on a seat in the cold, gripping her fists together.

  


Herman reemerged from the employee’s lounge with a distressed face. _I need to leave. I am going to grabs my things, and I am going to leave._ He searched the foyer of the building for Emma’s face, but luckily her face was not in sight. Approaching his desk, he rummaged through one of the drawers to find his car and house keys.

“You know, I’m sure if you just _talked_ to her, I think you’ll get along well,” his coworker Emmett said from the corner of his eye at his desk.

“Fuck off,” Herman breathed, _fucking prick._ He fingered his keys in the drawer and he quickly paced away.

“Where you going? It’s not your break is it?” Herman froze in front of the door frame and glared and him, barely giving him any attention.

“Family emergency. I already let Laura know.”

 

Herman rushed outside of one of the back doors to the bank. He needed to get home; take a nap, maybe? He needed to put his mind elsewhere and away from this mess. This girl, Emma, was going to control his life and well-being, and he’s letting her. He’s cowering in fear because he still can’t face the truth, and frankly, he doesn’t believe she can either. He doesn’t know a single person who can ever fully come to terms to what happened to them. He thrusted his back towards the brick wall of the cold building and started digging through his coat pockets. He pulled out his cigarette box accompanied by a small lighter. He stared at the single cigarette in his hand and ignited the flame to fill his lungs with relief, although only momentarily. His back slid downwards to the ground as it slumped over the rest of his body. He sat on the ground and held his knees close to his heart, feeling his own anxious pulse through his tired limbs. He took another breath of his cigarette as he silently took his glasses off and fiddled with them in his hands. He felt like they needed to be snapped in half. _How did I get to here? Why did I get to here? This is all my fault, isn’t it? I’m just damn tired and I need a break. There’s nothing I can really do here, is there? I’m trapped. I’ve trapped myself. Do I need to move, maybe? Do I need more sleep?_

Sighing, he took a final breath of his cigarette and tossed it aside, followed by crushing the flames under his office shoes. He slowly regained his full height and readjusted the tie underneath his long, black coat. He grabbed his satchel off of the ground that fell off of his shoulders before and put it back in its rightful place. He retreated to the parking lot behind the bank looking for where he parked his less-than-pretty car.

It was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Herman is just an emotional guy and he needs to let it all out. Emmett? Asshole.


	6. Lieu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graphic chapter. Forewarning.

Walking.

Picking up the pace.

Running.

Sprinting.

There were pins and needles on the ground. They all had teeth.

Flying.

The crushing of skulls under feet. The bodies were forming and screaming underneath. They kept grabbing and begging. Please don’t leave. They had to be ignored. They weren’t real.  
It was all starting to heat up. It felt like the magma was keeping its firm grasp. A final feeble attempt of imprisonment as it were.

Suddenly, it got dark. He was blinded. The dark was complimented by a face full of freezing cold, the type of cold that causes frostbite on someone’s lips. He was paralyzed. His face was wet. He was bombarded by the sudden feeling of being covered. His eyes opened and they were assaulted with a faint white. It was… snow?

The Doctor grasped the ground below him with the hands that were spread open in front of his head with the sun beating down on his neck; the substance melting as he grasped his fists. It hurt to raise his head, but he tried meekly. His body was shaking as he tried to readjust himself in this foreign environment. He doesn’t remember how he got here. All he remembers is that his body was stuck, being pulled around by gravity and other stronger forces.

He straightened himself fully onto his knees and touched his face. It was gone. They were gone. His restraints were gone. He hadn’t even realized until his hands reached his painful face. He could feel his heart rate pick up in fear. How was this possible? Where was he?

He continued to feel his face. His skin was tender and warm. His hands travelled to his eyelids and they were pained to the touch, making his unprepared hand flinch backwards. He tried blinking again, but was prevented by the soreness that graced by his eyelids. He never imagined what it would finally feel like without his head gear on. The pain will go away with time, as presumably it will heal at some point.

The Doctor moved his hands to feel his arms. There were no more coils. He instantly shifted his focus to his hands and the rest of his body. There were no wires. His skin and muscles were no longer generating visible electricity. He placed his hand over his heart. His heart was beating at an anxiety attack’s normal pace. Beforehand, his heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest _constantly._ It didn’t take him long to figure out that was the best way for his body to recycle and stay relatively in control of the electricity running through it.

He opened his left palm to see if he still had some juice left. Concentrating enough gave him a clue that he didn’t have much to work with. _Work with._ The Doctor put his hands onto his scalp and found that the wires, electrodes, and metal bars were all missing. He remembered the times were he was dragged by these same conductors, making him scream in pain and agony. They connected directly to his brain and worked like lightning rods; they took in the electric currents produced by him and the natural electric charges lingering in the air. Parts of his skull were outright removed and replaced by metal protruding outwards. It was the strongest source of his power.

He pressed down at the spots where he remembered where they were implanted into his skull. It was covered with a thin epidermis that daintily draped over what he could only assume to be his otherwise exposed brain. The epidermis of the skin was the only part of the skin that healed well, but also the most fragile. He froze in place. That didn’t fucking matter right now. He could feel the laughter start to burn in his throat.

His body instantly thrusted itself backward and collided with the snow-covered ground. The laughter escaped his mouth, stinging and pounding his throat. He felt the tears beginning to form on the ends of his eyelids, not caused by the sting of the winter air, but by his own emotions. He felt himself hold his own body letting itself go on the ground. All he wanted was to disappear and fade into the snow. He wanted to melt into the ground with it.

It was over. It was _over._ It was finally over.

The Doctor froze. It couldn’t be over. This was a trick, a fabrication. The Entity would never let him leave. It _tricked_ him. He was still in his office, knocked out, possibly. It was rearranging the inside of his skull and ripping apart his body for thinking he could escape. It was torturing him again for ever thinking he could leave. How was he suddenly able to get away? Was it because he was working in secret away from the Entity’s view? Surely it knew he killed a survivor for attempting to interfere and interrupt his work. He had to be in a whole new purgatory for ever even managing to commit such a crime. It wasn’t his fault. Simon was going to abandon him. They made an agreement to figure out how to leave together. _They,_ not _him,_ were bound to leave together and go their separate ways.

 

They spent hours upon hours in the basement laboratory of Lery’s and the inner workings of the Entity. It was a system; a system of pain and suffering, surely. Studying the world’s limits and how it linked back to their old dimension- _was it even considered a separate dimension? It did harbor people with differing timelines._ They did agree that they were potentially from the same Earth, but Simon was unaware of everything that happened on the planet after the climax of The Great War. There were survivors who explained things to him, but The Doctor found those sources to not be credible. He himself had no idea what would happen 1984 onwards. He dismissed anything Simon tried to explain to him through any information that was given to him by his fellow survivors. An old man who lived the majority of his life in the nineteenth century could not accurately explain the Internet when he himself had a small grasp on the technology he considered modern in his own day.

Ultimately, Simon seemed to have valued the information that The Doctor gave him more. Whether he only showed that he had any interest as a survival tactic, he was still unsure. Neither trusted each other, as it seemed. Stealing his notes and trying to run off on his shabby and brittle little legs only made it easier for The Doctor to track him down and eliminate him. He was woefully unaware of how much influence The Doctor held in his own little world of false paradise. Every camera and television were his eyes. Walls fooled Simon and he could hear them laughing at him. The halls always changed. The Doctor had no plans to kill him in Lery’s; if their theories were correct. After hours of toying with his prey, Simon finally fled the facility.

The darkness that was covered in fog was the weakest link in the Entity. Between the realms and the campfires were a nullified existence; a purgatory. If their theories were correct about it, it was the closest the Entity is to _real, tangible_ worlds. It’s how realms were created and how people were stolen. This area was no longer a physical manifestation of the Entity. Being killed or injured here may be permanent. Both believe that’s how many disappeared over the years.

Finding him was so fucking easy. His blood was gushing so beautifully and he could smell it. He could smell his fear. Fucking up against him was unwise. The Doctor thought Simon knew better; clearly he didn’t. Their mutual truce was broken and he grabbed his sorry and aching body away from the ground, facing his awful and torn face.

“ **Mmm, Mr. Kennedy… where did you believe you were going?** ” His electricity-entwined voice stung and vibrated in the air and assaulted Simon’s steaming face.

“I was trying to show the others!” He panted, “they need to know about what we found!” He raised his voice in anger, but it was masked by his own fear. The Doctor’s grip tightened on his mangy coat.

“ **I’ve never heard bigger bullshit. You’re deceitful and I’m all too aware of it,** ” The Doctor stared at him with his forced toothy grin, twitching with his eyes focused on the man in front of him captive in his grip. He tried to ignore the pain his talking was causing him.

“You’re the deceitful one! We were supposed-”

“ **Do you know what I’m going to do to you now?** ” He cut off Simon before he could finish his sentence leaving him in a submissive silence, “ **at first I was considering reorganizing your innards with my own hands and keeping you awake in the process. I was going to tie you down and place electrodes onto every sensitive part of your body. Maybe I could have fumbled around with your face, forcing every fucking opening open. See how it feels. But then I finally realized-** ” The Doctor paused with his speech to slow down his talking. He was no longer thinking rationally and let his clouded anger take over his head. “ **I realized that I can kill you here. Permanently. You can be my first live test subject. I am sure you are aware of that, yes?”**

“You’re rightfully insane!”

“ **Tell me something I don’t know,** ” The Doctor tossed Simon to the ground as if he were a ragdoll he were done playing with. Simon cowered under his own arms as looked up at the man towering over him. The Doctor’s glowing eyes reflected on his body and illuminated his drops of sweat that squirmed on his face. “ **I’m going to make you wither in your own blood and piss.** ”

He thrusted his foot onto Simon’s thorax hard enough to hear a snap, most likely from his false ribs or sternum. The bellowed scream that came from Simon’s lungs rang through his ears like he just heard an explosion. He heard more snapping underneath the heel of his shoe followed by being pillowed by squishy organs. The sheer control he had over him was euphoric. He felt the electricity move from the coils in his legs to the matter of meat underneath him. He didn’t want to fry him, but he wanted to subdue him some more. His fingernails dug through his palms as he imagined himself scowling with frustration.

He bent over Simon’s panting body to grab his right bicep. He shoved his foot further into the old man’s thoracic cavity while simultaneously pulling on his arm. His hand slid back to his forearm while he was still tugging with all of his strength. His fingernails gave way to the skin on the exposed arm, getting in between them and infecting them with its ancient blood cells. He wasn’t sure if Simon was lucid or not, but he was sure that he was still screaming, though he couldn’t hear it at all.

He felt the arthritic joints crumble under the tension his own body strength was inflicting to the poor man. With a sudden pop, Simon’s humerus left the socketed joint on his shoulder like nothing was holding it there in the first place. He couldn’t see the skin covered by his coat on his shoulder, but he assumed it looked like a stretched column of pale skin, tender to the touch. He noticed that the man below him was now shrieking, face covered with tears and mucus. The Doctor gave a  final pull and the arm finally tore off, creating a gruesome noise that made him even wince. The tearing of flesh now replaying in his mind, not hidden by the shrills and throat-tearing screams from the man on the ground.

The Doctor was dry heaving and panting as he glanced at the severed arm now in his own hand. With a motion that felt like a magnetic attraction, his free hand found itself moving toward the open flesh wound of the arm. With a jerked motion, his fingers dug into the flesh and shot back out covered with blood. He jammed his fingers into his open mouth to taste the foul iron liquid. He tossed the arm still lingering in his hand aside to the foggy ground and slowly dragged his fingers along his tongue to remove them from his mouth.

“We were… friends--”

“ **We were never friends. All I ever did was use you,** ” that was a lie. He truthfully enjoyed his company.

The Doctor grabbed the blood-stained beige file folder from underneath Simon’s ticking body. He turned his back on his doomed companion to head back to the hospital and lock himself away in his office until he was called into his next trial, and Simon will return to the campfire and it’ll all be fine. He’s safe there. That’s the only guaranteed safe place for survivors, so the injuries are sure to be eliminated.

Removing the guilt makes you feel better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, it's been a while! I was stuck on this chapter for a bit but I think I finally figured it out. I ended it here because the next part is long and I don't think it would've made sense if I placed it here. This chapter seems short. Sorry about that. I just wanted it out.


End file.
